{"id":16588,"date":"2021-04-05T15:30:34","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T15:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=16588"},"modified":"2026-04-23T20:36:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:36:33","slug":"tourism-in-south-korea-down-90-4-in-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/tourism-in-south-korea-down-90-4-in-february","title":{"rendered":"Tourism in South Korea down 90.4% in February"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Only 65,582 tourists visited South Korea in February due to ongoing Covid-19 countermeasures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

South Korea.- Tourism in South Korea was down 90.4 per cent year-on-year <\/strong>in February, with 65,582 visitors reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors from the country’s two largest source markets, China and Japan<\/strong>, were down by 88.5 per cen<\/strong>t and 99.2 per cent respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only 11,982 Chinese tourists arrived in South Korea <\/strong>in February and 1,719 from Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO)\u00a0<\/strong>has said it sees no sign of an immediate recovery<\/em><\/a>\u00a0as entry restrictions continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the first two months of 2021 combined, tourist arrivals to South Korea were down 93.7 per cent<\/strong> from 1,957,920 in 2020 to 123,979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Korean casinos face huge losses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

South Korea’s 16 foreigner-only casinos have been deeply affected <\/strong>by the lack of tourists.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paradise Co. <\/strong>announced\u00a0February sales of KRW17.38bn (US$15.5m)<\/em><\/a>, a\u00a036.5 per cent drop compared to January.<\/strong> Revenue for the first three months of 2021 combined was down 55.9 per cent year-on-year to KRW68.02bn (US$60m)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grand Korea Leisure\u00a0<\/strong>reported a loss of KRW64.33bn (US$57.6m) for 2020<\/a><\/em>. For February 2021,\u00a0casino sales were down by 98.8 per cent year-on-year<\/strong>\u00a0to KRW507m (US$448,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state-run casino operator Kangwon Land reported\u00a0an adjusted loss of KRW275.88bn (US$249.7m) for 2020<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0government has announced a postponement in the deadline for South Korean casinos to pay their sales taxes<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only 65,582 tourists visited South Korea in February due to ongoing Covid-19 countermeasures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":16589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"South Korea's tourism sector experienced a severe downturn in February 2021, with a 90.4% year-on-year decrease in visitors due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, impacting key source markets like China and Japan. This decline has profoundly affected the nation's foreigner-only casino operators, including Paradise Co., Grand Korea Leisure, and Kangwon Land, which reported significant revenue drops and substantial losses. In response, the government has deferred sales tax payments for these distressed gaming entities.","focusai_entities":"Paradise Co., Grand Korea Leisure, Kangwon Land, Korea Tourism Organization","focusai_location":"South Korea, China, Japan","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.7), operator_casino (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Recovery Metrics?","query":"What specific GGR recovery metrics and inbound tourism volume thresholds are the South Korean government and major casino operators monitoring to signal a potential easing of travel restrictions and a return to pre-pandemic operational capacity?"},{"label":"Capital Structure Impact?","query":"How are the sustained revenue declines and operational losses impacting the capital structure, debt covenants, and liquidity positions of listed operators like Paradise Co. and Grand Korea Leisure, and what mitigation strategies are being deployed?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,16338,158],"tags":[23907],"class_list":["post-16588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-casino-news","category-east-asia-news","category-slider-home","tag-land-based-casino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16588"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16612,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16588\/revisions\/16612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}